BREAKING BAD: A series in the book of Judges
Overview: Judges 3:7-11
March 2, 2014
In 2006, a man named Vince Gilligan was out of work and a little desperate. He was at the doorstep of middle age and crisis was around the corner. Vince said it was a difficult season in his life and it led him to consider his own mortality and the morality that goes with a life well lived. Gilligan grew up Catholic in Virginia and he still had the lingering morality of his Catholicism if not the faith that went with it. In the down period of his life, Vince was considering what lengths a man would go to. When pushed to the brink, what is man capable of? Where was the proverbial line in the sand, and what would it take for a man to cross that line? Out of that fallow period in his life and with that line of thinking, Vince Gilligan began writing the show that would become Breaking Bad.
The phrase “breaking bad” is a Southern saying that essentially refers to a person going wild or crossing that line in the sand, moving from good to bad. This is an appropriate title for the show that Vincent Gilligan created. The premise of his TV series is built upon a man named Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher. On his 50th birthday, Walter finds out that he has cancer. This is difficult for anyone anywhere to handle but it was really hard for Walt, mainly because he has a teenage son with a disability and a pregnant wife. Walter’s mind immediately goes to how he will provide for his family in light of his diagnosis that he will not have long to live.
Walt is faced with a line in the sand. He is faced with a question of morality. Really, he must decide what is right in his own eyes. Walt decides to make a lot of money in a short amount of time by manufacturing crystal meth. He knows this is objectively wrong because drug abuse is a real problem that wrecks lives and is illegal. But he is a chemistry expert and there is a lot of money to be made in the drug world. Walt has a goal of several hundred thousand dollars that he can make in a few months that will be enough to pay off the house, take care of his wife and pay for his kids’ college education. This man whose name is White, finds himself quickly in a moral grey area in which he must choose what is right for him and his family. Legally and objectively this is wrong, but he justifies it because it is for a good cause and so he does what is right in his own eyes.
This show, Breaking Bad, went on for five seasons andrecently ended. It was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed shows in recent memory. I won’t ruin it for you but Walt does not stop after making his goal of several hundred thousand dollars. In fact, this man progresses (or regresses) from being a chemistry teacher, to a low level drug producer, to ultimately the man at the top of drug organization that ships nationally and makes tens of millions of dollars in profits. Along the way there is death, drug-addiction, adultery, lies, violence, deception, extreme hubris and we watch this man’s life unravel as he goes darker and deeper each season.
Now at this point, you might say, “That’s nice Gabe, I know you like movies and TV shows but why in the world are we talking about this in church? Because the Bible talks about it. We will be studying the book of Judges from now until Easter and the book of Judges could easily be called “Breaking Bad.” For 400 years, the people of God justify their behavior and things get worse and worse. Two phrases are repeated throughout this dark book: “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes” and “The people of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.” In all reality, these two phrases essentially say the same thing. Many times when mankind does evil in the sight of the Lord, it is because he is doing what is right in his own eyes. Without deference to God and without God’s help, the things that often seem right in our eyes are what can lead to our destruction.
This series won’t be all darkness and downward spirals. This book is filled with redemption, but even bigger than that; the book of Judges exists to show us our need for redemption and a true redeemer. A judge in this book is not a man on a bench in a black robe; rather, a judge is a deliverer. Way back when we did the series on Jonah, I introduced you to the idea of the Deuteronomic cycle. And it is perfectly illustrated in the book of Judges.
Let me explain this further. A pattern happens throughout the Old Testament called the Deuteronomic cycle. This is a recurring pattern that consists of the following: calling-rebellion->reprimand->repentance->rescue. (Graphic on screen- portraying these words as a cycle.) When you look at the big macro story of God’s people this pattern happens again and again. Way back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are given a call to worship and reign, but they rebel. God metes out a reprimand. They realize their error and return to God in repentance and he begins the process of rescue. In the book of Judges, this Deuteronomic cycle happens with each generation. After the people had entered the Promised Land, but before there was a king over Israel, the people did as they saw fit. They had a call to be a worshipping community of blessing, but they rebelled. God would deliver them over to foreign adversaries, they would repent, and God would send a judge (like Deborah, Gideon, Othniel or Samson) to restore them. Before long, they would return to their call only to rebel against it yet again. Round and round this cycle goes throughout the Old Testament.
There are several rotations of this Deuteronomic cycle in Judges and for the most part they get progressively worse. Not only do the people get worse but the judges also get worse. Most of the judges in this book are severely flawed deliverers. They get worse and worse until we get to the final chapters. The final judge is Samson, and he is a violent, prideful man controlled by lust and vengeance. Paired with that, the final scenes in the book are of a horrific rape and murder that leads to civil war and genocide.
Just like Walter White, the Israelites break bad. You have group who have come to the Promised Land. They have seen miracles, they have trusted in God, and they have stepped out in faith through events such as the march around the wall of Jericho. By the end of the book, the de facto leader is a lecherous and violent man and the nationis fighting with itself in a civil war that was set off by one of the most horrific events in the Bible. In the same way that you might ask how a chemistry teacher could become a drug lord, you might ask how the people of God could become this group of sinful rebels.
When people actually read the book of Judges, they are usually embarrassed by it or confused as to why it is in the Bible. Here are a couple of things to note before we launch in to this series. 1) The book of Judges (like some other historical books) is descriptive not prescriptive. The author is simply recording what happened. So when we read stories about God’s chosen people and deliverers chosen by God who do detestable things, we cannot assume that God approved of these things. That’s why that phrase is so important, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” For the most part, Judges exists without editorial commentary. It’s just what is. There was a reality TV show that recently aired in the UK on the BBC. It was called Festivals, Sex and Suspicious Parents. The premise was that teenagers or young adults go to a music festival and their behavior is recorded. You can guess with booze, hormones and no oversight how things went. Then their behavior is shown to their shocked parents. Can you imagine if you were recorded doing some of the dumb things you did as a teenager? Of course, the parents are horrified. They see the way their kid’s act when they think no one is watching. The show is not a prescription for how to live; they just show how things are when these young adults choose to do what is right in their own eyes. And this leads to our second overarching point.
2) The book of Judges exists to show us we are lost and in need of a savior. In each of the Deuteronomic cycles, the people of God choose their own way, and the misery that naturally follows ruins countless lives. Ultimately, the people of God in the midst of their own decisions cry out to God for rescue. Time and again this happens. The problem with the book of Judges is that the deliverers are flawed. Not only do we realize that humans are flawed but human deliverers are flawed. This book makes you thirsty for a perfect deliverer, one whose work will know no end, one whose redemption lasts. If we zoom out, that is really the broader story of the Bible: sin enters the world and humanity breaks bad. And from that moment onward, people are looking for a savior. That’s why, even though Judges is bleak in many ways, it is hopeful because it shows us how essential it was/is to have a savior. Throughout this book, we will see glimmers and foreshadowing of the ultimate deliverer in Jesus Christ. He is the One whose deliverance isn’t temporary or purely physical but rather the one who confronts our greatest need. That we broke bad and he fixed our circumstances isn’t enough. We need a new heart. We need to be reunited with our maker and live a life according to what is right in his eyes. That is why this series will take us right up to Easter. We will study the brokenness, we will see the glimmers of hope and on Easter Sunday we will see the one true deliverer.
Judges 2:6-10
This passage sets up the direction of the book. Just as a reminder of where we are chronologically and geographically: We finished Deuteronomy two weeks ago, and we saw Moses handing off the leadership of the Israelites to Joshua. The book of Joshua follows the Israelites as they conquer and take possession of Canaan, the Promised Land. Judges picks up at the end of Joshua’s life. Verse 7 is an important summary statement that the people walked with God, that they trusted and had faith in him, which led to a land to call their own. But verse 10 is the scary and foreboding passage: the generation that served with Joshua passed away and the new generation did not know the Lord.
Before we go forward, this deserves a small aside. If you’ll remember from the Deuteronomy series, when we focused on the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4-6, it said to love the Lord with all that you are and to teach that to your children, to pass it on to them and to teach them around the dinner table. This is what happens when you don’t do that. Our church is passionate about Sticky Faith, which is built upon the idea that you cannot outsource your children’s spiritual growth. The church gets to influence your child for 52 hours a year. The other 8708 hours are yours. That’s why our hope is to equip and encourage you as parents to pass on the faith to your kiddos.
Judges 2:11-15
The first step in the Deuteronomic cycle is rebellion. The people did evil in the sight of the Lord. They bowed down before foreign idols, specifically, Baal and Ashtoreth. These were the two principle deities of the Canaanites. Baal was the god of harvest and Ashtoreth was the goddess of love and fertility. When you really boil it down, these two gods represent sex and money. In an agrarian society, the god in control of the harvest was then really in control of how much money and provision you had. Likewise, the goddess of love and fertility was really the goddess of sex.
It’s easy to deride the Israelites and ask how they could be so dumb and so misled. They had followed God through the desert; they had been given victory in the Promised Land. Now they are bowing down before carved wood idols. As you well know, they weren’t bowing down to the wooden or golden idols as much as the ideas they represent. When you realize that, it becomes quite easy to know we are often no better than the Israelites. We don’t bow down before wood idols in 2014 in Silicon Valley, but we can quickly kneel before the altar of cash. Not straightforward and literal, but when our lives become obsessed with making and retaining cash, we are then no different from the Israelites. Similarly, we don’t kneel before the goddess of sex, but when our life is built upon finding sexual gratification no matter the consequences, we kneel before Ashtoreth. We need a savior. One who fulfills us and provides for us in ways that sex and money never can.
Judges 3:15b-19
These are the final parts of the Deuteronomic cycle. We have rebellion, then reprimand,and the people are distressed, which leads to repentance, then we ultimately have rescue. But this passage also serves as a summary for how the book will go. The people will grow more and more corrupt and the only time of peace is when there is repentance and restoration. When the judge is in the mode of delivering, there is peace and there is hope. But we see the sad truth of human deliverers in verse19- when the judge died, the peace died with him.
We see this whole Deuteronomic cycle happen in chapter 3:7-12a, rebellion, repentance, rescue and restoration. But the deliverer dies and peace dies with him.
Many of you in this room have grown children and you really missed out on some of the technology that we get to use today in watching our kids. One of our favorite things is the video baby monitor. You can now see what your baby is doing real time when you leave the room. Check out this video:
When the authority leaves the room, it all falls apart. The really amazing part is that this kid knows there is a camera and he takes care of that. This baby is a perfect picture of our nature: not only rebelling but also trying at all costs to cover it up and not be seen. When the judges leave the room throughout this book, peace goes with them. When the judge dies, peace dies with him.
This is the first foreshadowing we see of our need for a true deliverer. Several hundred years after the book of Judges, the people of God will have gone through countless Deuteronomic cycles and they will have also gone through several failed and flawed kings. In this passage today, the people of God have completely lost. They have been conquered by the Babylonians and ripped from the Promised Land. You can imagine they have gotten usedto this. When the deliverer or king dies, the peace (if there was any) dies with him. They know that unrest is coming. They will suffer and things will be shaken up yet again. That is why the prophecy of Daniel is so important.
Daniel 7:13-14
We often read this as a statement of power but it is also a message of peace. A kingdom that will not end means a peace that will not end. This passage was fulfilled and quoted in the birth of Jesus.
Luke 1:32-33
Peace didn’t die when Jesus died; in fact,quite the opposite. Peace finally came with his sacrificial death on the cross. We broke bad in the garden and shalom was broken too. Peace was broken. But when Jesus died on aRoman cross for you and for me, peace was made available to all who would believe. We need a deliverer whose reign will know no end. Some of you today have been facing the ups and downs of life. And some of you have been counting on temporary deliverers to make things right. Your finances are a mess at the moment and you are praying for a financial deliverer. And it may come. You get that new job. You get an unexpected pile of cash. But more than likely, it will one day go away again and peace will go with it. Some of you today are struggling with an illness and you are praying for the deliverance of health. But one day it will leave you again and peace will go with it. Some of you have a strained relationship and if that could just get fixed, then everything would be ok. And so you pray for deliverance in a relationship. But one day, it or another one like it will go away and your peace will go with it. None of those are bad things to pray for and hope for, but they are all temporary solutions for peace. You need a deliverer whose reign will know no end. And if you know that peace then everything else will pale in comparison.