Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1136 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Downward Spiral and Final Betrayal - Worldview Wednesday


Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.  Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.  Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1136 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday.  Creating a Biblical Worldview is important to have a proper perspective on today’s current events.  To establish a Biblical Worldview, it is required that you also have a proper understanding of God and His Word.  On our Worldview Wednesday episodes we are in a series in which we are covering another detailed review of a book from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars Dr. Micheal S. Heiser.  We are taking a deep dive and will share Dr. Heiser's insights into the question, which is also the title of his book: ‘What Does God Want?’
Downward Spiral and Final Betrayal

·       Downward Spiral
In last week’s recap, we see that God rescued his family by allowing them to escape the bondage of Egypt.  After that, they wander in the wilderness for 40 years because of their betrayal of God.  You'd think that after God brought Israel into the land, the Israelites would have felt an overwhelming love for God—that their believing loyalty would be at an all-time high. Not so much. Instead, they decided coexistence with evil could work. They refused to drive idolaters (people who worshipped other gods with idols) out of the land. It's like the Israelites knew nothing of the past, how rebellion brings disaster. Their disloyalty and lack of love for God led to this demoralizing scene:

Judges 2:1-3 tells us, The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said to the Israelites, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land that I swore to give your ancestors, and I said I would never break my covenant with you. For your part, you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. But you disobeyed my command. Why did you do this?  So now I declare that I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.”

God had to judge his people ... again. He basically said, “I’m out of here. Let's see how you do on your own since you don't want me.” We've seen that before. And, as we’ve also seen before, God's people did very badly without their God being present with them. And since we’re rehashing history, God’s response also looks familiar—he kept coming back to Israel to lift them out of trouble. We all know people like that. Maybe you're one of them. You stick to helping someone because of love, even to the point that it seems irrational. And if you think about what God was doing, it does seem insane. But God wants a human family even when he's unwanted. His love defies logic.

The whole biblical book of Judges, from which the scene above was cited, is about a seemingly never-ending cycle of spiritual rebellion, the suffering it brings, crying out to God for help, and God coming back in love. That cycle persisted for a few centuries. It reached a climax of sorts when the people within the nation of Israel demanded that Samuel, a priest, and prophet, anoint a king to rule them.Not surprisingly, the people's choice for a king (Saul) was an unmitigated disaster. You know things aren't going to go well (or ought to know) when your choice for a king has to be dragged out of hiding to take the job (l ...