Feelings of inadequacy, fear of failure, indecision, and guilt often rob us of joy and effectiveness. Why are these pitfalls so prevalent today, even in the church? How can we as Christian women avoid them and approach life with contagious confidence?

Sometimes, in order to repent and worship God, we have to take a long hard look at what life apart from him looks like. This week in Judges 17 and 18, we saw the ironic and devastating effects of Israel’s rejection of the one true God: “There was no king in Israel, and everyone did right in their own eyes.” The fruit: relational manipulation, deceit, generational sin, the perversion of the priesthood, and death. The proud, thieving son is robbed, betrayed, exposed, and abandoned. Israel is lost. 

So, what to do? Learn from Israel, examine our own hearts, repent of specific idolatries, and gratefully worship the one true God!

Samson’s story captured our attention with daring exploits, romantic betrayal, and a last-minute plot twist. It’s clear, however, that Samson is not the hero of the tale. He walked contrary to God’s ways and took God’s gifts for granted. His life offers warnings about the dangers of compromise and presuming on the Lord’s kindness.

Our covenant-keeping God is the real hero of Samson’s story. God strengthened Samson for his acts of Philistine judgment. God disciplined his people and Samson, allowing them to see how blind and enslaved they had become. Then, in a display of great mercy, God began to deliver them from the Philistines. That story of mercy parallels every believer’s story. God sent his son to deliver his people from the power of sin and death.

Jesus is our greater judge and champion. He said in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Whether the metaphor works because Jesus broke the power of sin that would lock us into hell or because the gates represent the strength of evil powers that issue from it, Jesus declared that the final victory belongs to him. What a Savior!

In Samson’s life, we saw the glorious character of God revealed.

• When Israel was unfaithful, God remained a covenant-keeper. He disciplined Israel and sent the help they didn’t ask for.

Samson’s life also pointed to Jesus, our better judge.

• Jesus was also announced by an angel as the Promised Son and Deliverer.

“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” —Psalm 145:3

Jephthah’s story is both triumph and tragedy. The author of Judges recounts Jephthah’s life in such a way that his “victory is swallowed up in death.” But Jephthah’s story is just prologue to the best story. His life illustrates the inability of all other saviors to deliver us from our worst enemy. 

He prepares us for another judge who will rise to deliver his people. Like Jephthah, this judge will be despised and rejected by his brothers. His own people will drive him away. He too will die alone with no posterity, and sin and death will appear to continue their tyrannous reign on earth. 

But Jesus is not Jephthah! Death is not the final word for the one who kept himself “unspotted from the world.” In Jesus, “death is swallowed up in victory”! His resurrection from the dead is God’s victory over the enemies of sin, death, and the devil. So now this victory, and not death, has become the final world for the people of God—including Jephthah—who were once enslaved to sin and held captive by the grave.

Four takeaway truths we glean from this passage about Abimelech:

1. Abimelech’s dark chapter in Israel’s history harbors this lovely truth about God: that he is loyal to his own beyond death. 

2. Abimelech’s story illustrates how deeply God cares about the unity of his people.

3. Abimelech’s life warns us of the internal danger of sin. 

4. Abimelech prepares us for the incomparable Jesus.

This week we saw the wonders of the Lord’s sovereign mercy and grace in Judges 6–8; his grace is much greater and higher than all of our sins and our shortcomings. The Lord, in sovereign grace and mercy, called Gideon, calmed his fears, clothed him with the Spirit of God. But, also in grace, he kept stacking the deck against his people. Why? So that God could get all the glory for the victory rather than leaving an opportunity for boasting about strategy or leadership tactics or their own strength. Israel would not be able to boast that they won by the strength of their numbers, but would give thanks to God and his mighty power, grace and sovereign mercy in the victory. We even saw God’s grace in the perfectly timed hearing of a nightmare expressly naming Gideon as victorious by God’s hand.

He uses fallen, unwilling, weak, fearful and frail people as jars of clay. God often calls people like us, who are often under-resourced from a human perspective so that we will trust in the One with all the resources and hope in God alone. God loves to use human weakness to display his strength and grace. With Moses, with Gideon and with us, God chooses the weak instead of the strong, the foolish and fearful instead of the wise and brave, and clothes us with his Spirit. Why? "… we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." —2 Corinthians 4:7

Mothers wear many hats and juggle many jobs. How do we find hope, focus, and endurance in the whirlwind of life's responsibilities? We'll consider Christ's call to the weary as well as look for practical ways to fix our hope on Him even when our days are so full.

View the handout Amy mentions here.

Judges 4-5 reminds us that in the midst of our own sins and failures, God’s mercy and might move through the most unexpected deliverer to redeem us from the enemy of our soul. 

• As women who fear and follow the God who saves, courageously meet the challenge God puts before you, knowing that he himself goes with you and fights for you.

What the author of Judges observed is much like what Jesus observed when he looked over the multitudes of people following him. As Jesus said, “They are like sheep with no shepherd,” (Matt 9:36) so the author of Judges said, they were a nation with no King.”

And in the absence of a king, in the absence of good leaders and shepherds, there is no end to the trouble the nation will get into.

In Judges 2, one generation of promise-breakers dies, and a new generation who “forgot the Lord” (3:7) replaces them. Soon, those un-demolished altars of chapter 1 ensnare this new generation, and they begin to worship pagan gods at these shrines. As a result, God faithfully enacts the covenant curses of which he had repeatedly warned Israel. He strengthens enemies to afflict them, and in “terrible distress,” (2:15) Israel cries out to God. In chapter 3, God mercifully raises up a series of three judges to save his people from three enemies.