A vicious cycle often leads to a downward spiral. After Jericho, things did not go according to God’s plan for Israel. They did not obey God by driving out the inhabitants of the promised land and so found themselves in constant conflict with them. A cycle ensued. Israel disobeyed leading to God’s judgment of oppression by their adversaries. They cried out to God and he sent a judge to deliver them. After the judge died, the Israelites dove deeper into sin. This spin cycle repeated for hundreds of years.
We could breathe a sigh of relief that the period of the Judges is over, except the pattern seems strangely familiar. To this day, even followers of Christ can get caught up in patterns of sin which leads to repentance, forgiveness, restoration and return to sin. We had a beautiful beagle named Shiloh. Well, she was beautiful to us, but she bit our family and friends over food. She bit Melanie one time and acted like she would bite me. I went King James on her and told her she would not “live long in the land” if she bit me. Every time she acted out, she felt awful about it. If a dog can apologize, Shiloh did. But the next time someone had a piece of pizza, she reverted to her old ways.
Please pardon the analogy, but catch the truth. A friend and deacon of mine at my first church used to say to us, “Now I ought not to say this . . .” and then he would say it. His words hurt the members of the church, disrupted fellowship and created pain. After a few years of loving him as his pastor I wanted to say, “If you know you ought not say it, please don’t.” In Romans 8 we learn that God not only wants to deliver us from the penalty of our sins, but also from the power of sin. Godly sorrow leads to repentance which is a change of mind and change of behavior.
