Provoked The Lord To Anger

Judges 2:5-12 – And they called the name of that place Bochim. And they sacrificed there to the Lord. When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.

Joshua 24:31 – Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.

Deuteronomy 4:25-26 – “When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed.

Zechariah 1:2 – “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.

Application:

• ·         The story told in Joshua is a testimony to Israel’s faithfulness in that generation.
• ·         The pattern of Israel’s rebellion, resulting in expulsion from the land, and then their repentance, leading to restoration to the land, is prominent in Deuteronomy.
• ·         The Lord was angry because of the covenant-breaking sins of the Jews’ preexilic forefathers, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 B.C., followed by exile to Babylonia.

All Scripture verses taken from ESV