Cycles And Relapses
Chris Seidman
Part of The Story 2024
February 25, 2024

The Story 2024

Cycles And Relapses
February 25, 2024
Chris Seidman, Lead Minister, The Branch


Judges 2:7-9a, 10-19 (The Story, Pages 103-104)
The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance … .

After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.

Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the people around them.

They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them.

He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands.

Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them.

But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.


Judges 10:16b (NIV)
And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.

The Promised Land Cycle

  • Idolatry – Opposition – Judge (Deliverer)

  • Idolatry – Aram – Otheniel
  • Idolatry – Moabites – Ehud
  • Idolatry – Canaanites – Deborah
  • Idolatry – Midianites – Gideon
  • Idolatry – Ammonites – Jephthah
  • Idolatry – Philistines – Samson

What Judges Can Teach Us …

  • Without God, our “Promised Lands” turn into wastelands.

  • Leaving God’s instructions undone can lead to snares and “cycles” later.


Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV)
“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.


Hebrews 12:15 (NIV)
See to it … that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

  • The importance of passing our faith from generation to generation.


Judges 2:10-12a (The Story, page 103)
After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt.


Deuteronomy 6:5-9 (NIV)
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Passing The Baton Happens When We …

  • Are capitalizing on moments in the course of everyday life.

  • Are intentional with God’s Word in the course of everyday life.

  • Are confessional in regard to our own shortcomings in the course of everyday life.


An important phrase you have started to see coming up now in The Story …

“The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon … .”


Romans 7:21-25 (NIV)
So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord.