It was my 9th grade year at Southern Junior High School in Lexington, Ky. The school day was almost over. All I had left was a school assembly and my last class which was shop class. Shop class was cool because we did things like made leather key chains and took sheets of copper and used a punch to make pictures. I loved that class and especially since it was the last class of the day.
So the bell rang and 5th period was over so it was off to kill 45 minutes in an assembly, which turned out to be a choir concert. More on that in a minute. The best thing about assemblies, other than they got you out of going to class, was there was no assigned seating, which meant I got to sit with all my buddies!!
Turns out that wasn’t always a good thing. There we sat, waiting to see why we were all in the gymnasium and then here they came. The concert choir members all dressed in their polo’s and khaki’s. I knew this wasn’t going to go well. Not the choir, I’m sure they did fine, I knew it wasn’t going to go well for me and my buddies. Why you ask, good question.
The choir director / teacher was not a friendly woman, especially to those who weren’t in choir. Suffice it to say that everyone of my buddies, including me, had history with this lady, bad history. I have had a problem almost all of my life and still have it to a certain extent. It’s the problem of keeping my mouth shut. Maybe you can relate.
Well anyways, the choir was just a few minutes in when, and I don’t know who started it exactly (me), we started imitating the choir director’s motions and before long we were all doing it and then we realize that we have half of our section doing it so we got scared and stopped. We might have even looked around at the kids still doing it like “nice, real mature,” in hopes that if any teachers were watching they would think we weren’t part of the mockery.
It seemed like we were in the clear, everyone had stopped and the assembly was over and we were headed to shop class thinking, that was fun and we got away with it!! Until we walked into shop class and our teacher called us into his office. A look of terror struck my eyes and my one friend who had this class with me and when he said to us “did you boys enjoy the concert,” I knew we were dead! Our shop teacher was a retired military commander known for his great paddling ability.
I felt like I was standing before a judge in a court martial. Our fate was in his hands and we did not like our chances!!!
Judges elicit a sense of fear, don’t they? They never call you in for something you have done right. We think of them as someone who harshly tells us what we did wrong. And they seem to be everywhere these days on television. There’s Judge Judy and Hatchett. Mathis and Christina. Judge Brown and my favorite is the judge from Providence, Rhode Island that I see on social media Judge Francesco Caprio.
Then there are some judges you may not know. They even have a book in the Bible with their name on it. Judges. These judges appeared on the scene to help sort out right and wrong. They also helped people get out of trouble.
God’s people kept putting themselves into a never-ending cycle of disobedience, discipline, repentance, and deliverance. Judges like Deborah and Gideon and Samson helped them find their way back to God.
What did the people do that was so bad they needed judges? Two things. First, they failed to put God first in their lives (Judges 1:28). And secondly, they did not teach their children to know God (Judges 2:10). These two “sins” led to their downfall and ruin.
Are you making the same mistakes they made? If so, you have a judge that can help you––Jesus.
The good news is that when he “calls” you into his office after you’ve messed up, you will look up to see your judge’s face and see your savior there.
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